


Once Upon An Age

by Leni



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 04:59:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Belle's love came too late?</p><p>There are no happy endings. Except that there <i>are</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon An Age

**I.**

 _once upon an age…_

"You look lovely this morning, Belle," Wardrobe gushes that morning, vivacious barely past dawn. She throws her doors open gleefully, a proud puff at the large variety of materials and colors inside. "What will you want today, darling girl?" she continues the ritual with a polite pause, and then proceeds to pick out a green day dress when a decision doesn't come. "Here, honey. Remind us of spring today."

Belle accepts the dress, followed by the heavy coat she is to wear on her way to her father's home.

"Dreadful weather, dreadful!" Wardrobe simpers, stretching towards the window. "Wood can't get cold, I'm so glad! How I'd suffer, all the shawls I'd have to carry. No. It's better this way."

(It's not.)

"Thank you," Belle says, laying the dress on her bed, then moves to sit at her vanity table. It's a real piece of furniture, mute and motionless. Belle taps her fingers against the surface, looking out the window as she waits for the next step.

The snow falls heavily. Most coach riders wouldn't make the journey - Belle wonders if _he_ will use it as a pretext to keep her again. She's been patient, waiting for him to run out of excuses. She waits now, too, but no demanding knock comes to her door.

" _Ladies!_ " Wardrobe calls in a high tone.

Brush and the Curler twins perk up and jump onto Belle's lamp. "Such pretty hair," they sing the daily song, climbing up her long tresses, "a princess' pretty hair, and princess for the prince…."

Half an hour later, Belle is ready to depart.

"Dear?"

She turns to Wardrobe.

The matron's voice trembles. "I've picked your Sunday dress."

Belle nods, "Thanks," and leaves.

 

 _…a rosebush hid in the forest, shy and trembling and almost bare._

 

 **II.**

 _a white rose blooms in winter's coldest night, the wolves say._

 

The wind wraps cold arms around her, weaving through the heavy wool of her coat. The neigh of horses fade in the background, and Belle catches a last glimpse of Coach (an empty glove carrying a whip) leading the animals back to the barn. Her mission complete, her father reassured, she breathes freely until her appointment next month.

Her visits grow more difficult; her pass through town, more tense with each trip. Once she was the dreamer, the singer, the odd one. Now her neighbors whisper prayers and cross themselves at her sight.

"Nonsense, nonsense!" her father cried, waist deep in a new apparatus. "You're still my girl, Belle. They know that."

(They don't.)

Not the next month, or the one that would follow, but soon she'll make her own excuses. That's not her home anymore, not her people. She belongs no more, if she ever did.

She needs not knock; Cogsworth is waiting for her, balancing a tray with small pastries on his head. Chip welcomes her with an amusing story about Sultan and a stray cat, and Belle makes sure to kiss his rim before drinking the hot tea Mrs. Potts just poured in.

"Master chose to stay in his rooms today," Cogsworth announces, not quite an accusation.

"Did he?"

"He hasn't come out," Mrs. Potts confesses. "Again."

Belle sighs and hurries upstairs, nodding distractedly at Lumière's assistants as they light her way. "Good night, dear."

He looks up, as surprised as every end of the month. "You came back."

Then she is enveloped in a tight hug, soft pelt against her cheek.

Belle maneuvers to kiss his chin. "Don't I always?"

 

 _try to steal it, break the forest's law, face the beast and his worst rage._

 

The End  
15/02/10


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